"Raising up his root internally and uprooting him through upper section of his body is Zhan".

In pushing hands practice it means: approaching upper section of his body you provoke the wave of resistance in his body and raising of his roots from earth depth up to earth surface. Then if you have pushing hand experience you'll find the way to dump him down. It may be done by pushing or by yielding. Personally I prefer pushing. If your opponent has experience in pushing hands and escaped from your attack you proceed by Nian, Lian and Sui which deal with different directions.

Best Regards

Yuri

[This message has been edited by Yury Snisarenko (edited 11-03-2004).]

In my understanding Ti Shou Shang Shi means that this movement implies lifting of the hands (Ti Shou) but not merely as person would do in ordinary situation. This kind of lifting also implies active internal movement (Shi) upward (Shang) that may be used for uprooting or for ti-fang technique (lift-let go technique).

Thanks much for the link. Fascinating stuff. The more I study, the more tai chi seems different from external schools of martial arts. There was a bit in one of the translations of following (or was it sticking) that talked about "devotion" and giving up the self to follow the other. It's very profound, but still (for me) a strange concept to link with martial arts. It resonates with sayings like, "Know your enemy better than you know your friend" and "Love thine enemy."

I think it's great that there are opportunities to practice compassion with tai chi. Other harder arts seem to focus on breaking things and people. This one says, "Never show 100% of what you are capable of." In part, it's a sound defensive technique and allows one to retain the element of surprise in the attack. But it's also a statement about listening so closely to someone so that you may never need to break them. If you only need to use 5% of what you've got to deflect an attacker, then why bother using 100%? If you can listen that close, then you'll always be safe and it may never be necessary to harm someone else.